ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

Trio Dichter made its recording debut in 2023 with the album An Invitation at the Schumanns', playing historical instruments. The group is composed of players with strong independent careers in the historical performance field.

Trio Dichter comprises violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte, cellist Hanna Salzenstein, and pianist Fiona Mato. All three players were students in historical performance at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) in the mid-2010s: de Swarte in the class of Michaël Hentz, Salzenstein as a student of Michel Strauss and then Raphaël Pidoux, and Mato, a graduate of the Athens Conservatory who came to Paris under the auspices of the Onassis Foundation for studies with Michel Béroff and Claire Désert. Prior to the formation of Trio Dichter, the group members had already worked together for several years, co-founding the Trio Éluard. All three players also have independent careers with a variety of historical performance groups specializing in music from the Baroque to the Romantic era.

Trio Dichter was formed by the same players and soon made the album An Invitation at the Schumanns' in 2023 on the Harmonia Mundi label. The group was associated with specific instruments from the historical collection of the Philharmonie de Paris: a 1700 Gagliano violin from Naples, a 1734 Guarneri cello from Venice, and a Bösendorfer piano from around 1890. The former two instruments were played with gut strings. These instruments were deployed on the album to create a sound appropriate to what might have been heard at an evening musicale at the home of Robert and Clara Schumann in the late 1840s or early 1850s. As of the summer of 2023, it was not clear whether Trio Dichter was an ongoing concern beyond the players' association with this album; the group had performances booked as part of the promotion of Invitation at the Schumanns'. ~ James Manheim

The French violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte is active in both Baroque and more contemporary repertory, using both period instruments and modern ones. He is noted as a soloist, chamber music player, and member of several leading historically oriented Baroque groups. Recording for the leading French labels Harmonia Mundi and Alpha, he boasts of a growing recording catalog. That catalog includes a solo turn in Vivaldi's Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) violin concertos on Harmonia Mundi in 2025.

Langlois de Swarte was born in Céret in the south of France. He took up the violin at age four and then entered the Conservatoire Montserrat Caballé in Perpignan. At the unusually early age of nine, he added Baroque violin to his studies, having discovered it in a master class with Patrick Bismuth; he began studies at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional in Toulouse, studying with Gilles Colliard. On a Zaleski Foundation scholarship, he studied with Devy Erlih and Igor Volochine at the École Normale de Musique in Paris, and in 2014, he enrolled at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP). There, his studies were oriented toward modern violin and Romantic music.

It wasn't long before Langlois de Swarte attracted the attention of Baroque groups, including the venerable Les Arts Florissants and its leader, William Christie. He joined that group in 2015, and he has performed with Christie in chamber concerts. He has also performed or recorded with other leading Baroque groups, including Ensemble Les Ombres, Les Nouveaux Caractères, and Jupiter. Langlois de Swarte has founded two groups of his own, one for Baroque performance (Ensemble Le Consort, with harpsichordist Justin Taylor), and one to explore 19th and 20th century French repertory (the Eluard Trio, with Fiona Mato and Hanna Salzenstein). As a soloist, he has appeared in such major venues as Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Shanghai National Art Center. He was signed to the Harmonia Mundi and released his debut album, The Mad Lover, in 2020 with lutenist Thomas Dunford. In 2021, he released a pair of albums, Générations (featuring Christie and including French Baroque violin sonatas) and Proust, Le Concert Retrouvé, representing a concert that might have been played at a salon described by novelist Marcel Proust in The Remembrance of Things Past. His recording catalog continued to grow rapidly, even during the pandemic-plagued early 2020s. He issued the album An Invitation at the Schumanns' with Trio Dichter in 2023. Langlois de Swarte was heard on the William Christie tribute album Bill & Friends in 2024, and he returned in 2025, leading Le Consort as well as playing the violin, with a recording on Harmonia Mundi of Vivaldi's Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons) violin concertos. ~ James Manheim